Moissanite Plans to “Compete With Diamonds”

[PinkDiamond]

Moissanite Plans to “Compete With Diamonds,” New CEO Says
Charles & Colvard will target millennials with a message about ethical sourcing
Rob Bates | March 9, 2016

"With the release of its new, more brilliant gem, Charles & Colvard plans to market moissanite to millennials as a diamond alternative, says its new president and CEO, Suzanne Miglucci.

The company’s higher-color ForeverOne product will allow the company “to move up-market and compete directly with diamonds for market share,” said Miglucci in a statement.

“We plan to build a direct relationship with millennials,” she said on a conference call following the release of the company’s latest financial results. “They have a fierce devotion to socially responsible companies and products and they seek out products that are ethically sourced.”

They are also looking for a bargain, she said: “Driven by the significant student loans that burden this demographic, millennials are judicious about how they spend their money.”

“Social- and value-conscious millennials, meet ForeverOne,” Miglucci said. “We will roll out our most extensive go-to-market program ever and let [the industry] know we are a force to be reckoned with.”

She said that the company will tout its product as “untainted by human rights abuses, environmental degradation, or wartime conflicts.”

“It’s astounding to me how little people know [about moissanite],” she said. “It’s also astounding how little people know about the mining of gemstones in general and what that does to the environment.”

The company plans to promote its new ForeverOne product as a gemstone that “exceeds ..."
http://www.jckonline.com/2016/03/09/moi ... -306540353

[SwordfishMining]

My God the GALL of those people. "She said. “It’s also astounding how little people know about the mining of gemstones in general and what that does to the environment.” WHAT? Backhanded ad hominum atttack without saying it directly. "Mining rapes the earth not us." They, and everyone of their buyers, have no "environment" without it being mined and built with stuff that was mined. Where do their materials come from? What is a natural rock and what is a factory using mined products and polluting to further milk a rather common thing that has only ornamental and profit qualities, not rareity?

[PinkDiamond]

You're right John. There's a big controversy over this because they want to appeal to the millennials by calling their product "green", when in fact it takes so much energy to produce them there's nothing 'green' about them, so if they want to tout them as anything favorable they really ought to stick to the 'conflict-free' angle for advertising, because anyone who knows anything about the process knows that calling it 'green' is deceptive advertsing.

[PinkDiamond]

I found I had missed Rob Bates' article on exactly this issue, John.


How Do We Talk About Ethical Sourcing?
Why the industry has mixed feelings about eco-friendly messaging
Rob Bates | March 10, 2016

"Suzanne Miglucci, the new president and CEO of moissanite manufacturer Charles & Colvard, seemed an energetic, forceful presence on her first conference call. Discussing her company’s new strategy, she talked up the growing importance of millennials in the market and how they favor responsibly sourced products. Which makes them, she concluded, the perfect market for “ethically sourced” ForeverOne brand.

To drive her point home, she took several shots at gem mining. “It’s also astounding how little people know about the mining of gemstones in general and what that does to the environment,” she said at one point. At another, she said, moissanite is “untainted by human rights abuses, environmental degradation, or wartime conflicts.”

From what I hear, ForeverOne is an indeed an impressive product. But there are two problems with this message. First, the substantive: From the comments on the conference call, Miglucci is calling moissanite ethical only in comparison to natural diamonds. Yet, even if you grant that producing moissanite in a factory does less environmental harm than extracting a diamond from a ground—and, while this makes a certain intuitive sense, I haven’t seen any hard data on this—that doesn’t mean you can call moissanite an ethical product, any more than you can call a lower-fat doughnut health food. I have not seen any proof that moissanite should be considered more ethical than any other factory-produced product. (More on this here.)

But there is also business problem here: This strategy is inherently negative.

A while ago, an executive from Charles & Colvard said some retailers didn’t want to stock moissanite because “they are afraid that [moissanite] will cannibalize sales from their diamonds, and they have already made the investment in their diamonds.” It’s hard to see how talking about the problems in gem mining—which could actively hurt sales of natural diamonds—will decrease this resistance.

This isn’t limited to moissanite; I have also heard similar reservations about the marketing from lab-grown diamond companies, which now regularly invoke “cartel-like pricing” and conflict-related issues. Last month, an official of the new lab-grown diamond association stressed to me the two categories of diamonds can coexist. I believe that. Yet, when those companies criticize the rest of the trade, it seems like they are not trying to compliment the natural industry but damage it. (And yes, the natural industry takes potshots at the lab-grown business, too.)

A while ago, I attended a meeting on fair trade diamonds. Some retailers objected to the idea of fair trade–branded gemstones; they thought it would ..."
http://www.jckonline.com/blogs/cutting- ... -306540353

[SwordfishMining]

He puts it well. I see them as starting on the supply, but immediately after selling to the middle men and ramping up production- going to direct marketing mass produced competitive pieces in a bulk sort of catalog to remove the jewelers from the B2C restructuring of the diamond industry.

[rocks2dust]

I wonder if this marketing push has more to do with maximizing sales - now that the Charles & Colvard patent for Moissanite has expired - before other manufacturers ramp up production and FINALLY drive down the absurd prices they've been charging?

[PinkDiamond]

Considering the timing of this announcement, that could very well be why they're ramping up the PR for their product, r2d.

[SwordfishMining]

Game theory. The proper place is fighting towards the bottom of pricing not maintaining profit margins to win. Look at General Mills. They just shift profit from one sector or brand to the other to keep the less profitable one viable and being sold keeping GMs market share intact for branding.